Summary

My intended communication objective for the infographic was to teach people “How to make Hot Chocolate”,  although it is a simple and straight forward activity I believed it would make for an interesting image. One of my focuses was the idea that the image needed to be simple and easy to understand for all ages, from children to adults, especially since its children who would need instructions. Another one of my objectives was to create a funky but easy to follow layout. Many infographics that I looked at when researching were carefully laid out make the most of the space available. There are only three simple instructions to make hot chocolate so I decided to add some possible flavors for the bottom third of the image.

In order to achieve this image I used many tips and lessons that I was taught in class, starting with colour, we were told that less is more when it came to colour. Thus using fewer colours would made for a more effective image, however I struggled with this as the colour usually associated with hot chocolate is brown. However I used what we were taught in class and decided to play around with different shades of brown and found colours that both complemented the brown and stood out. In the end I settled on using three different browns and a pinky, red for the majority of the image. In terms of the layout I used what I learned in class to try and create an interesting image to view. I decided to place the title of the right of the page and have it read down, this is a change from the typical left to right. I thought it was creative to give each of the different flavor options a box, while still having it blend in with the colour scheme. One of the struggles I had when using illustrator occurred when creating the images to illustrate the different flavours. It was hard to make images that didn’t look like cartoons, making the images look life like meant I needed to consider shading and real life colours. It allowed me to experiment with gradient for the marshmallows and trying to make the cream and bubbles look 3D. I have tried to make everything evenly spaced and a logical size compared to the other objects on the page. The bottom of the image clearly follows a grid pattern while the top half is more split down the middle. I clearly numbered the instructions in order to make it extremely clear where to read.

Overall, I am happy with the image and feel like it conveys the instructions and objectives in an effective and simple way. Next time I would like to be more familiar with the software in order to produce more intricate work.